


desperate times

by pensee



Category: Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom, Rejseholdet | Unit One, Trial & Retribution (TV)
Genre: Background Violence, Berto is fine to let him think that, Europol Cop!Fischer, Fischer for all his detecting skills has no idea Berto is bad news, Fischer is just a dad, Fischer persuades in a slightly Dom-ish way to get Berto to eat, Gen, Hint of D/s dynamics, M/M, Post-Rejseholdet, Serial killer!Berto, Slightly AU to T&R, This is all really very sweet, flirtation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 16:42:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20998016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pensee/pseuds/pensee
Summary: Runaway killer Berto tries to blend in with the local populace by jumping from place to place whenever he has a problem with his current boyfriend (which is often) or whenever he gets bored (even more). On the train from Düsseldorf to the Netherlands, he meets disgraced former-Danish-National Police-inspector-now-Europol-agent Allan Fischer.





	desperate times

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grantairess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grantairess/gifts).

> This is for Grantaire, a wonderful friend who got me thinking more about Berto today. <3

Berto orders a drink from the little snack trolley going by, something ridiculous and sugary, with a maraschino cherry to top it all off because he know how enticing he looks, bringing the red berry between his pink lips, the intrigued-and-terrified look men of all ages get when he manipulates the stem into a knot with his tongue.

_Stop_, he warns himself, already glancing towards the front of the car, where he sees a sleek, dark head peeking out at him, smiling almost goofily as if he cannot believe he is now the center of Berto’s attention. _Getting into trouble with a man is why you needed to leave Germany in the first place_.

He’d met a nice banker in Düsseldorf—a bit plain, of course, boring on the surface and doubly so in private though he was an executive who kept Berto entertained with his bank account well enough. Though Berto had always been jealous, even if he wasn’t particularly interested in the man himself; it was the principle of the thing, him already having claimed it, wanting men to acknowledge they belonged to him.

So, when he found his now less-than-beloved banker in the arms of his cleaning woman, well. Berto had left them both with a bloody letter opener to the chest, the banker’s private office safe stripped of all its useful currency, including a passport, a small, snub-nosed revolver, and stacks upon stacks of crisp, still-banded Euros.

The German police would probably be looking for him—his prints were scattered all around the apartment after all—but they’d probably never find him unless he was exceedingly unlucky. Interpol and Europol had worse threats to worry about than little old him, who occasionally fucked men (or women), killed them, and burgled them of whatever they were worth in order to support himself wherever he ended up.

“You know, you really shouldn’t stare,” a voice says, and Berto’s eyes snap to the aisle, where the man from before is waiting for him, having gotten up out of his seat some time ago by the slightly uncomfortable way he stands, leaning against the empty opposite seat, hands in the deep pockets of his leather jacket. “You might give someone the wrong idea.”

He’s clearly waiting for an invitation, or to be told to sit down, and Berto nearly rolls his eyes, though he had been the one spacing out.

The man screams confidence—some swagger to him, even, though Berto would bet his left bollock the other man was more familiar with how to pick up the fairer sex than boys—_hm, what was the number_—more than a decade younger than him. That didn’t matter, though, not really. Berto’s had straight men before; more importantly, been successful at manipulating straight men before.

“I hope I’m not giving _you_ the wrong idea, love,” he drawls, drawing his legs back so that there’s space for the man to move into the seat opposite his. “I thought you were cute, so I stared.”

The man half smiles, eyes crinkling—prematurely lined, Berto realizes, with some little spark of delight, despite how smooth the rest of his skin is. There is the slightest bit of grey in his dark hair as well, and Berto bites his lower lip, head down so his hair shades his eyes.

“That shouldn’t be as charming as it is,” the man says, and Berto makes a show of shrugging, though his cheeks are unusually flushed for some reason. He feels himself radiating heat, suddenly; doesn’t know exactly why.

“I have a gift,” Berto smiles, looking up just as the other man draws a cigarette and lighter out of his coat, cupping his hand around the cig as it sticks out between his front teeth.

“It’s rude not to offer, but you’re really not supposed to be smoking in here,” he points out, and the man exhales, unconcerned, cigarette dangling from his fingers in a loose, familiar way that makes Berto think he’s a pack-a-day man, at least.

“I’m a fucking cop,” the man says, “What are they gonna do, arrest me?”

Berto’s blood runs cold.

“What,” he sputters, not entirely feigned, already thinking of the best way to squeeze out of this situation.

“I do administrative work, mostly. Haven’t been on a raid in a fucking year, but I’m still a cop,” the man smirks, as if he thinks his job is a joke, but Berto can’t really care for how devastating those beautiful teeth are because his heart is pounding so hard in his chest.

“Well, shit, maybe you shouldn’t have sat down then,” he japes weakly, and the man grins even wider.

“What, are you smuggling hash or something in your case? I’m kidding around, for helvede, you look like I told you that you were about to be executed or something,” the man says, slapping his knee like Berto is one of the boys, and Berto lets out a shaky exhale, his guard still up.

There was something wrong with someone who could unsettle him, and even if it was just a poor attempt at flirting, there was something he needed to be concerned about with this one.

“I’m just a, what’s that the Americans call them? Cubicle monkey. I stamp papers and fill out forms all day, honest,” the man chuckles, low and self-deprecating, and Berto thinks, _well, you may be, but you could ruin me, too, I have a bag full of stolen cash and a passport that’s not mine_ (thank Christ he’d already sold the gun before he got out of Germany) _that you could ask far too many questions about if I’m not careful. _

He takes a drag of his cigarette, and studies Berto with an unidentifiable expression that Berto thinks might be the way people look at birds in cages: pitying, but slightly captivated at the same time.

“You look like you’ve had a hard day. You want to have a drink when we get into the city?” the man asks, and he’s not actually sitting next to Berto or stroking a sweaty hand down his thigh—which are things that Berto knows how to manage, knows them very fucking well—instead offering him what seems like actual compassion, though Berto doesn’t doubt that the only reason the man outright approached him was because he was certain Berto was going to offer up one of his orifices for use before the day was over.

_And you’re still thinking about it_, Berto tells himself, eyes wide in disbelief, watching the curl of smoke over the man’s head, nose twitching as he exhales another cloud of it, the other passengers in the car turning from their soft conversations or quiet enjoyment of audiobooks or whatever it was people usually did to raise eyebrows at the scent of burning tobacco.

_You’re still thinking about what it would be like to get that big hand on you, even if he is just a cubicle monkey. You’re thinking about accepting that drink_.

“One drink,” Berto croaks, thinking of the bag of cash in the luggage compartment above him, about how oblivious this man must be if he cannot see Berto’s crimes written all over his face.

_But then again, you’re so good at hiding_.

“Great,” the man says, holding out the hand that doesn’t have his cigarette in it. “I’m Fischer. Allan Fischer.”

“Nice to meet you, Allan,” Berto says, trying to be polite, and not like he’s a runaway in a worn-out jumper with far too little sleep and far too wired on his poor choice of sugary drink to be flirting with an older man who may or may not spell trouble. “I’m Robert.”

“No last name,” the man says, not quite smiling, though the strange upturn of his full lips makes Berto’s heartrate speed up for an entirely different reason than panic.

“You’re not going to need one if this is just going to be a one-off. Some drinks, some other things after.”

“And what if it’s not a one-off? How long are you going to be in the Netherlands?”

“One question at a time,” Berto says, as if he’s teasing, but silently rethinking his entire plan.

Would one one-off be worth having to pick up and flee the very next day? Or should he just slip off when they pulled into the station and pretend this never happened?

“I don’t have anywhere else to be,” Fischer says.

“Fine, but the limit is twenty.”

“Twenty questions,” Fischer scoffs, though he seems more amused than mocking.

“Don’t have any pressing paperwork to deal with when you get back, Mister Not-A-Cop-Fischer?”

“Fuck paperwork,” Fischer says, reaching into his jacket to extract the half empty packet of cigarettes again.

Knowing he shouldn’t, but doing so anyway, Berto carefully draws one out of the pack.

The place that Fischer takes him to is less pub-like than Berto was imagining. It has a large, all-glass picture window and a view of the lights shimmering on a shallow canal that’s already gone the color of night by the time their train pulls into the station.

“This is unexpectedly nice,” he comments, Fischer snorting into his drink, a strong Austrian import that makes Berto’s eyes water, even from all the way over here.

“I found a few hundred thousand Euros for the owner. An old business partner fucked her over, but I fixed it, so now I eat here for free.”

“Mostly free,” the bartender corrects, before racing off to mix another round of drinks for a young business-suited crowd in the corner. “He’s run up quite the tab; not even three hundred thousand Euros would be able to pay for that.”

Fischer makes a rude gesture, but doesn’t deny it, and Berto toasts his slightly less eyewatering vodka shot, murmuring, “To the power of paperwork, then,” relishing, for some reason, the low timbre of Fischer’s laugh before he downs about half his drink, throat working as he swallows and swallows, Berto shifting uncomfortably in his seat at the muscles working in Fischer’s pale throat.

When the bill comes for the appetizers that Berto decided he wanted far too late into his cups, his head already half-swimming, he puts a bill on the table without even looking at the denomination, Fischer whistling at the 500 Euro note Berto’s pulled, crumpled, out of his pocket.

“Gud,” Fischer says, under his breath. “Put that away.”

Snatching it off the table, Fischer shoves it back into his hands and puts a more reasonable denomination down before the server vanishes to place their order.

“I think you’ve already had too much,” Fischer smiles, with the surety of an experienced drinker leering at a lightweight.

Berto’s not entirely drunk; he’s just exhausted, and he hasn’t felt both this comfortable and on-edge at once, and it’s really fucking with his sense of internal balance.

“Not enough,” Berto corrects, though his hands shake when he tries to take a pull of his drink—a whiskey this time.

“You need some food in you,” Fischer says, and the rote, defeated quality of someone used to being ignored with which he says it startles Berto for a moment, drink halfway to his mouth.

His eyes slide towards Fischer’s left hand, balanced on the table and unadorned. That doesn’t mean anything, but there isn’t even a tan line, and the last thing Berto needs is a jealous significant other chasing after him for something that hasn’t even happened yet.

(The irony of this is, of course, not lost on him.)

“I need—,” Berto says, because this is not the way he’s wanting this to go at all.

He’s the one who calls the shots and decides where the night strays to and where it doesn’t, but he nonetheless finds himself sitting with three plates of mouthwateringly delicious appetizers in front of him not five minutes later, suddenly so hungry he would be prepared to dig in with his bare hands.

_How long has it been since you’ve had real meal, not shoddily re-heated takeaway or something spit out the hatch of a processed food machine?_

“I know what you need,” Fischer says, placing a hand on Berto’s wrist, and Berto’s eyes fly to meet his before he realizes he’s just trying to place a fork into his limp hand. “Now, eat.”

Berto thinks of saying something biting, because he’s had men tell him what to do in the past, and it’s never worked out—_dead, dead, in prison, the ones he’d left behind had never survived him, and he had barely managed to claw his way out so he didn’t perish with them_—but that doesn’t seem to matter to Fischer, with his terribly earnest eyes and leather jacket a decade out of date, and five o’clock shadow almost too light to see.

“Fine,” Berto says, though he’s secretly much more than glad to start working on his patchwork meal, looking up every so often to realize that Fischer’s not having any at all, not with how Berto’s hovering over the plates as if they’re the last bit of food for kilometres.

“Go ahead,” Fischer nods, taking a last swig of his beer and stifling a loud belch with a hand to his sternum.

Berto doesn’t bother to hide his laughter, though he averts his eyes at Fischer’s amiable grin, trying not to flush.

_It’s just the alcohol_, he tells himself, and lets this thought settle him as he finally spears a bit of food onto his fork.

Humming in bliss as the seared meat hits his tongue, he sighs gratefully as he begins to chew, elbows rudely on the table as he leans against the heel of his opposite hand, pretending that he is not watching Fischer watching him eat.

Despite any lingering awkwardness he may feel over being so closely observed as he partakes, it is the best bite of anything he has had all week.

**Author's Note:**

> @penseeart on Twitter for more Hannigram and HEU stuff <3


End file.
